Fat

Fat is where my body stores energy to be accessed later, right? I may not have that exactly right, but it is how I understand it. It also provides protection from threats to my body’s well being. This is not science, it is just a way of looking at it that occurs to me.

The way I see it, it takes a while for the newest fat to settle into its new home. During that settlement period where it stores energy and assumes a protector role, it also becomes the keeper of the emotions I ate about and the stories I told myself during that session of overeating. I somehow avoid fully feeling the feelings and fact checking the stories when I eat about them.

Getting my recently re-acquired 20 pounds off as soon as possible then is really important. My experience is the sooner the recent gain can be addressed the more easily I am able to let it go. This supports my theory that fat reduction is LIFO, last in first out. That is why it is always harder to release fat as the overall loss of weight progresses. The more I lose, the closer I get to the “older fat” which is harder for me to lose, as I reach a “plateau”. It is harder, I think, because the feelings and the stories stored in that fat are awakened and I must feel those feelings and hear those stories once again, and most importantly fully deal with them. It is my facing those decisions that I acted on, thought about, and ate about a long time ago.

I think, too, that is why I feel guilt and shame about being overweight. Not so much about how I think I look, although that certainly has an effect, rather it is the shame attached to the feelings and stories about the actions that the fat holds.

Now, it does of course matter what my lifestyle and body chemistry is today. Do I eat well, in a way that supports burning excess calories? Am I active, do I exercise, walk, do anything that is moving my body? What about my body chemistry and even my genetics?

I am pre-diabetic and have insulin resistance. Do I have such because I have a history of overeating and the associated weight gain caused insulin resistance to develop? Do I have the genetic material that brought it about and then contributed to the weight gain? Is it both? Is it just unhealthy use of my will power? Am I bad? Am I being punished?

These latter questions pound me especially whenever I reach a plateau or binge and gain new weight. Just for the record, I am weary of hearing about diet plans and other schemes. I need no help knowing what to eat and what not to eat. I know when to eat and how. What I have the least control over is the thought that eating a particular thing, and it is never a vegetable, will bring me ease and comfort. I have no real control over what my body does with my excess calories.

And, yes there are new drugs that help. And I have used them, and they did help. They seemed to address the insulin resistance and thereby lowering my weight and they decreased my closeness to diabetes type II, as well. But I lost access to the drug because I had to switch to Medicare and chose a so-called Advantage plan that denies the coverage. It is denied by the same provider that, when I was covered by them “commercially”, covered it. But now that this same organization is my Advantage provider, it is denied.

While I could go on about how messed up affordable access to drugs and coverage by insurance providers is these days, I will not. This circumstance, as critical as it is to me and lots of other people, is not the point of my reflection here and now. Perhaps I will rage about it another time.

For now, it is important for me to acknowledge this possible relationship between my body fat and my unresolved emotions. This is not supported by any science that I know of, though it may well be. This is just something that when I think about it makes sense to me. 

It is not that different from my other project, storage reduction. As I have said, handling the items of my past that I have stored on shelves, in drawers, and in boxes brings up the feelings associated with a memory held in that thing. I find that if I am not ok in some way with that memory, then I am unwilling to let that item go. When I am ok with it, if it still brings me joy or simply makes me smile, then I can either keep it a little longer, maybe even make a place to display it. Or I can freely let it go.